Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to propose a modified version of an $830 million bond proposal as he seeks to get the package through a divided City Council Wednesday.
Johnson’s team is offering aldermen language clarifying that the money will not be used for purposes other than infrastructure repairs and upgrades. The move comes as the bond plan faces substantial opposition from members of the council who worry the revenue would be inappropriately used to cover costs for Chicago Public Schools.
“As we have said from the very beginning, this investment is for capital, so there’s no ambiguity,” Johnson said at a City Hall news conference Tuesday. “This funding is needed to maintain the critical public safety and public infrastructure systems that our residents rely upon.”
But despite the compromise, the plan will continue to face opposition Wednesday about its repayment timeline, after an anticipated close vote was stalled by council critics last week.
Johnson’s new version does not include changes to that timeline, in which the city would make no interest payments for the first two years and only start making principal payments in 2045.
Ald. Bill Conway said he plans to introduce his own substitute ordinance Wednesday. Conway’s plan would lower the bond’s maximum amount to around $400 million and create a separate ordinance for the plan’s $108 million pool of “menu money” spent at aldermen’s discretion.
“That is a far superior proposal, it does not kick the can down the road,” Conway, 34th, said Tuesday.
Finance Committee Chair Ald. Pat Dowell blasted the criticism of the bond plan as “outright duplicity” in a Tribune op-ed Monday. She defended the repayment schedule and wrote the real way to “kick the can down the road” would be to put off infrastructure maintenance by not taking on debt.
The City Council’s Rules Committee also met Tuesday morning. There, aldermen voted to rescue one of Johnson’s top priorities from the dead-end committee: a plan to spur development of affordable, sustainable housing with a revolving loan fund.
Aldermen also voted out of the Rules Committee separate plans to block hemp sales to minors and boot hemp products from specific neighborhoods. The votes set the City Council up to once again deliberate and vote on how hemp should be regulated as Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker spar over hemp’s legality and tax revenues.
The committee, typically controlled by mayors and their allies as a way to stall legislation they oppose, did not consider an ethics ordinance proposed by Ald. Matt Martin that would restrict the power of the mayor-controlled Law Department.
Martin’s ordinance is aligned with recommendations made by Inspector General Deborah Witzburg. Witzburg told aldermen the changes are needed to prevent the Law Department from hindering investigations that “may result in embarrassment or political consequences to City leaders.”
When the ordinance was stalled by a Johnson ally last week, a mayoral spokesperson said it “requires further scrutiny in the Rules Committee where it can be properly vetted and analyzed.”
Asked why it was not considered by the committee Tuesday, Johnson’s top attorney, Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry, excoriated the proposal as “on its face, simply legally deficient.”
“It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the law,” said Richardson-Lowry, who joined Johnson at the City Hall news conference. “But mostly, it would dismantle guardrails so that the person charged with looking at fraud, waste and abuse would become the abuser. That can’t be allowed.”
Richardson-Lowry said she planned to meet with Witzburg soon and called it “distasteful” that the proposal was made publicly instead of in private discussions. Witzburg previously said she has pushed for the changes for years.
Witzburg, who sat in the gallery during the Rules Committee meeting, told reporters afterward she was “not going to apologize” for the public conversation and disagreed with the corporation counsel on the legality of the proposal.
“I think it is hard to take as an act of good faith banishing this ordinance to this committee, where no subsequent conversation about it will happen,” Witzburg said. “I can’t imagine anyone who looks out at city government right now and thinks that the way we have always done government ethics is good enough.”
